Life is not meant to be traveled backwards
by ThoughtsAreMeantToBeLetOut
Summary: Sometimes he just feels like the rug has been pulled out from underneath him and he doesn't know how to live anymore. TRIGGER WARNING: Character death!


Have you ever felt like the world's biggest failure? That nobody in their right mind would ever love you?  
That you weren't even good enough to use the ground you walk on?  
That's exactly how he feels right now.  
He lost everything he ever had and ever thought was important enough to hold on to.  
He still can't believe what happened, that she's actually gone.  
The more he thinks about it the harder it becomes for him to breathe.

He has to sit himself down and calm down his breathing before he starts hyperventilating.  
When an elderly man hands him a paper bag to breathe in he knows that it's bad.  
He can feel his face turn red and his throat burning up but he just can't breathe, he just can't seem to get any air in his lunges.  
In the distance he can hear a vague voice telling him to calm down, to keep breathing, to think happy thoughts.  
Don't these people understand that there aren't any happy thoughts left in his mind?  
That every thought he has represents doom and gloom and that his mind is a very dark place to be right now?  
When he tries to open his eyes again he sees a crowd of people surrounding him but he just doesn't care, if the ground could just split open and swallow him whole now, it would be fine by him. If he would just stop breathing and pass out and die, it wouldn't be that bad.  
At least he would get to be with her.  
But the moment he thinks he's actually about to die is the moment his longs fill itself with air and the hyperventilation stops, he guesses it wasn't his time to go just yet. When he's considerably calmed down he stands up, thanks the people for looking out for him and leaves without another single word.  
He wouldn't know what to say to them anyway.

His first Christmas without her feels empty and hollow.  
He's hung her stocking by the fireplace and he kisses her name before he turns in for the night.  
When he wakes up the next morning the stocking is on the ground and he feels that's the irony of the situation.  
She's there, but she's not **actually **there.  
His mother seems to be very worried about him, according to her he's losing a lot of weight and he's not taking good care of himself.  
Well, he guesses that's true because that's something she used to do for him.  
All he seems to be doing now is eating bread or yoghurt but most of the time he isn't even hungry and the first time he finds a vegan dish in the fridge he cries silently for over an hour.  
The worst part is that he can't seem to throw it away because he feels that if he does he's throwing away a part of her, a part he can never get back.  
The entire house is decorated in Christmas.  
He's having a giant Christmas tree full of ornaments, in every corner of the house there stockings, mistletoe or just tiny little Christmas knickknacks.  
He used to hate Christmas and fight with her every time she would decorate the house but now he just needs all of the house to be Christmassy.  
It makes him feel that she's still a part of him somehow.

It's about six months later when it happens.  
He's dusting the shelves and the broom gets stuck behind a little sculpture and when he tries to detangle it a picture frame falls to the ground and shatters into a million pieces.  
When he's about to pick it up he cuts himself on a piece of glass and he can hear her voice in the back of his mind scolding him not being careful enough.  
He doesn't pay that much attention to the cut because he sees the picture that's lying on the floor.  
It's a picture of their very first date in New York.  
He scoots himself down against the nearest wall and the tears just start to silently fall down his face and he can't control them.  
Why did she have to leave him? They never had enough time.  
There were so many things they wanted to do, so many countries they wanted to explore together.  
They were supposed to get married, have babies, and grow old together.  
Now he gets none of that with here. Suddenly he just feels so extremely angry that she got taken away from him and before he knows it he's throwing every single picture he has of them on the floor, shattering it into a million pieces.  
He's crying and screaming and getting his frustration out and when there's a knock on the door from his next door neighbor asking him if he's alright he manages to choke out that he's fine and that he doesn't have to worry about it.  
When he looks around the house again all he sees are shattered pictured frames and he just doesn't care.  
He feels numb. He doesn't think he's ever going to get over this.

After almost a year he can say that he's getting some good days in-between the bad.  
He still feels like he did something to deserve this life. He was the one driving the car and he should have seen the truck coming towards them, but he didn't. Somehow he still doesn't understand why he was the only one surviving. Did God spare him so he could make him live with the guilt for the rest of his life?  
The accident might not have been his fault, the truck might have driven through a red light but he was the one who should have hit the brakes on time and who should have just kept the car going straight forward.  
Then he would have been the one carried away in a body bag and not her. She was way too talented and beautiful to die at such a young age.  
They were supposed to grow up, have a life together; they were supposed to fight about stupid things like him forgetting to put the tube on the toothpaste or not putting the toilet seat back down, he was supposed to get mad at her for staying at the theater too late because she was just so darn ambitious or he was supposed to be uncomfortable with her kissing her costars.  
Instead he gets sleepless nights because he still keeps replaying the accident in his dreams.  
In his dreams she tells him that it isn't his fault and that he should continue living his life but how do you do that when the biggest reason of your existence isn't there anymore?  
So, he just does what he has been doing every night for the last 345 days, he looks up at the sky and tries to find the brightest shining star he can find to talk to, because he knows that's her.  
She might have never got to shine on Broadway but she's shining in all her glory amongst all the other stars in the sky.

He goes on his very first date exactly 500 days after the accident.  
The girl is nice and pretty but she's not **her. **When she asks him about her love life he shuts her down and tells her to never bring that up in conversation again.  
The date is nice enough and when she offers him a nightcap at her place he doesn't see the harm in accepting, he has to start living his life sometime right?  
And maybe this will get his brother of his back about being a hermit for the last year and a half.  
But when he collapses beside her later that night after having sex for the first time in forever he feels like the biggest cheat in the world.  
When he sneaks out and writes her an apologetic note telling her this was a very big mistake the tears already start to float.  
He dreams about her that night for the first time in a long time and he asks himself if this is ever going to get any easier.  
He actually goes on a second date with that same girl; she seems to be very understanding towards him and when she tells him that she lost her husband about two years ago he understands why.  
He actually comes to enjoy hanging out with this girl and he even lets himself open up to her and tells her all about the accident and all of the things he wanted to do in life but can't seem to get himself to do because he lost her.  
She can totally identify with him and he feels relieved to get some of the things of his chest and when he kisses her on the forth date, he doesn't feel the tug on his heart like the first time.

It still hurts. Every year on the anniversary of her death they hold a memorial.  
All of her friends in family gather at his house and they sing songs to celebrate her life.  
They always let her sing the final song of the night by playing some of her my space videos and they talk about her and what her life would have been like would she still be among them.  
It's nice to know that there are still that many friends and family that think about her a lot, he feels like this way she's never completely going to be forgotten.  
When he's lying in bed that night curled up against his girlfriend he thinks about what she would tell him if she could see him right now.  
He thinks that maybe she might be happy for him.  
He's doing his best to get his life back on track.  
He got a new job, a new apartment and a new girlfriend and somehow it doesn't seem so fresh anymore.  
Maybe, just maybe, he was supposed to survive the accident, find meaning in life again and make somebody else happy.  
But, whatever happens she's always going to be his one true love, nobody is going to compete with that.

Years later when he sees his wife lying in the hospital bed with their baby girl in her arms, he thinks about her for a second but quickly pushes that thought away.  
He has a new life now. He's married, working as a teacher at an elementary school and he's happy.  
When the doctor asks them how they're going to name her his wife whispers 'Rachel Barbra Hudson' and this time when he cries, he actually cries happy tears.  
He knows, that however far away she might be, she's guiding him, looking over him and there will always be a part of her with him right here on this earth.


End file.
